Creative musings in bright colors

Posts tagged ‘water decals’

I’ve just seen so many people doing complicated double accent nails, and I wanted to try it! Also I love this purple.

I feel like I cheated with this because the complicated nails are just water decals. This whole mani took under an hour, and as usual, most of that was waiting for the polish to dry! Unfortunately, the decal nails did need a white base (instead of just applying them over a base-coated nail) because the decals are not opaque. They are beautiful regardless!

These are one of my favorite nail designs that I have done recently (…that was not in the 31 Day Challenge, which is where I usually put my favorites). It is a bit of the wrong season, but it was 70 degrees out yesterday so it totally still feels almost-tropical! Basically I love these and I wanted to post them now :-p

These nails are based around water decals from the Born Pretty Store: all the leaves are decals! Which is absolutely amazing because they have white backgrounds and beautiful cut out edges and show up perfectly against a dark green base. I love when I don’t have to use a white base for water decals!!

The flowers I added by hand, because what is a mani with fun leaves without a few dotted petals? I like how colorful it is 🙂 but really I cannot wait to use the rest of these decals, maybe in spring when it is appropriate! But who knows. Snow leaves? I can make that a thing, perhaps!

Hope you enjoyed these tropical nails in the Fall! I think the rest of this month will be a bit more Autumn-themed. I even have some pumpkins! October rather snuck up on me thought, so I only really have one Halloween manicure (which, the holiday is next week, how did that happen)! Hopefully I remember next year in advance and can put together some more fun seasonal manis :-p Anyway, these decals are currently on sale for $1.59 for a set of three sheets, and I strongly recommend them.

Today is something pretty but very very simple: water decals! And really nothing else.

I wasn’t sure if these were opaque or not (I have been burned too many times not to assume I need a coordinating pastel-colored base polish), so I started with a base of Royalty Reinvented by L’Oreal. Truthfully, I didn’t need it. These water decals are 100% opaque and amazing. I soaked for 40-60 seconds and they came off easily, repositioned well, and stretched to fit my curves nails without ripping.

I feel like it is rather rare to find full-nail water decals that just work, so this was quite refreshing. Both thin enough to follow nail curves but thick enough to maintain their color and consistency. Win all around!

If you like these, or think you might just want to play around with some quick easy nail art a-la-water decals, head over to the Born Pretty Store. These particular decals are currently 99 cents.

Every year on “tutorial” day I am torn: do I make nail art based on someone else’s tutorial or do I make new nail art and my own tutorial? I had more time than usual this year (I got out of the clinic early) so I went with the make-your-own!

One really cool idea that I’ve been seeing around is geode nails…but all the good ones are made with either 400 layers of polish, acrylic paint, or gel polish. I will do none of those. I also have seen a lot of marble nails (the stone, not watermarble) and I wanted to see if I could combine the two! Plus, bonus water decals.

Basically, I wanted to demonstrate how you turn a rather unimpressive water decal into something glittery, and then unique. See below for actual steps…

Coat your nails in a base coat of your choice. Then paint your nails white and top coat (I used Snow me White by Sinful Colors as my white)

Remove the clear layer from the top of your water decal, and cut into nail-sized pieces.

Soak the decal in water for 15-45 seconds (if it has a clear background, closer to 15, if, like mine, it has a solid white background, more like 45). Apply to your nail, position to taste. Blot to dry, and clean around your nail beds to remove the excess decal with acetone.

Snazz it up! Pick the color you think would look best glitter-ized (likely not the most common color, so here I would not have picked white or blue) and add a coarse glitter. I picked the yellow, and covered it with gold glitter (Million Dollar Dream by F.U.N.).

You can stop here, if you want glittery marbled nails…or you can go on and personalize with stamping decals. In this case, I grabbed geometric triangle images (ND-104 and BP-L054).

Chose your two colors: the stamp and the inner colored part (I went with Black on Black by Sinful Colors for the stamp, and #333 by WOW for the inside part). Pick up the stamp, ideally on a clear stamper, and then color it in with your chosen polish.

To apply the decal to your nail, paint a thin coat of quick-dry clear polish, and when it is barely tacky (70% dried), use the stamper to transfer the design. Obviously you’ll be going one nail at a time for this part, unless you have numerous stampers.

I don’t know that I love having gone with a medium grey for my fill color, but I thought white would be too boring and gold would stand out too much. I guess I’m ok with it!

The water decals that I used were a bit of a surprise. I requested to review a 12-pack of full-nail water decals, and picked a collection of marble finishes. This particular design was the ugliest to me, so I used it hoping I could make it prettier. I was, however, not expecting the decals to have their own backing (white rather than clear) and they were thick enough that I probably didn’t need a white base! Also, they were thick and so bunched, which could have been a problem, but they actually stretched in a really fascinating way, which meant they ended forming to my nails (with a little pushing around) perfectly. I really love these decals! If you want the full set of 12 from the Born Pretty Store, you can find them here for $1.99.

I’ve been debating for a few days how I wanted to wear the water decals that I got to review from the Born Pretty Store…did I just do one accent nail? Did I do two nails? Top of my nails like a french tip? Triangles? I settled on a double accent because those can be fun, and then was faced with what to do with the other nails!

I ended up using a deep red with gold glitter polish, but a deep green creme was a close second. The only grey-red that I have would have been too painful to clean so I vetoed it (why are dark blues and reds so darn hard to get out of cuticles?).

I really like how these came out! Unlike most water decals, these floral ones are both very well printed (which is to say you can’t see the individual dots of color like you can on most, these look smooth) and come with a white or pale colored backing behind each part of the design. Frequently, the entire background is clear (so you have to put the decals over white to get the correct colors) or the background is colored so it can go over any color…these are cool because the leaves and flowers have their own printed background but the base color shows through everywhere else!

Colors
~ Nude: Essence – I Nude It
~ Red: Zoya – India

This was a super quick mani, and looks rather classy if I do say so myself! Although, oddly, I like it better on my nails with curved edges than the straight edges! I’ve always been a diehard straight-nail-edge fan (and I still am…I broke one of my nails on an awkward angle so I just rounded that hand), but for some reason this one just works on the oval nails! I’m likely to cut them all straight again very soon, but it makes for a fun contrast right now! If you want to get these decals for yourself, head over to the Born Pretty Store, they are currently on sale for $0.99! Hope you enjoyed!

Hilariously, I had a day of work today and without the stress of having to go into the hospital I forgot to post this until now! Whoops 😀

Today, I reached for the last of this most recent batch of nail art supplies from the Born Pretty Store, and came out with something awesome! Honestly, the water decals are stunning although the color change on my nail is a bit underwhelming.

I decided that for these really nifty fan-shapped decals, I needed to do a reciprocal gradient on my nails…white-purple-white. And it looked fairly awesome when I was done! But when I went to add the decals, the middle purple section was mostly covered.

The decals themselves come as two long strips, and would fit very long nails (even my longest nail only has about 2/3 of the decal on it). Unfortunately, the pointy part of each design is slightly too narrow for one nail, so if I had kept the webbing between each the sides of my nails would have been exposed. I decided to just hollow out alternating pieces of the decal and put them on my nail that way. My thumb has what they actually look like (webbing between each concentric fan pattern).

The designs removed very easily in the water, but were thick enough to reposition with ease. They were actually really really easy to use, which is often not true with full-nail decals!

I added silver caviar beads at the end…just for fun. 3D nail art makes me happy! Hope you enjoyed, and you can pick up these decals if you like them from the Born Pretty Store for $0.99. Don’t forget my 10% off code, LY5X31!

I don’t know why, but I couldn’t get the line that Zoe (from Firefly) says out of my head while painting these “Too much foofaraw. If I’m going to wear a dress, I’d want something with some slink.” Hence, Frills and Foofaraw!

This another of the designs where I used my newest review-haul from the Born Pretty Store. The water decals I used here are stunning, but I was at a loss for what to do under them because they were so complicated! I wanted to use bits from each part of the design (the water decal is one of those long continuous ones) and I kept arguing ‘gradient? ombre? glitter? colors?’ and settled on a subtle holo-shimmer in light grey because contrast is better.

I finally get off my surgical rotation this friday, so I can start growing my nails out again! It also means I can wear more awesome crazy nails and less subtle sadness (I haven’t posted many of the subtle manis yet because I am putting off editing them). I might even go back to posting daily, we shall see!

Colors
~ Grey holo: Emily de Molly – Crystal Crown
(no, I don’t know why I made a color list for just one color. Go with it).

Hope you enjoyed! And if you want to pick up this complicated yet cool water decal for yourself, you can find it at the Born Pretty Store for $0.99. Don’t forget to use my 10% off code, LY5X31!

Another Born Pretty Store review, done mid-surgery rotation! They sent me over some water decals to play with, and play I did! That being said, yes, my nails are still tiny.

I started with a dark shimmery red base called Masquerade Ball by Confetti. I wanted something the white decals would pop against that wasn’t just solid black, and I ended up really liking the combo!

These decals are beautiful. They come off easily in water, although they, if anything, dry too fast! You only get about 30 seconds to reposition them before they are stopping where they lay. I had some trouble on my first nail, which is why the spacing on the pointer finger is off. Despite that, I love the end result and it was fun figuring out where to put everything!

There are a bunch more somewhat similar patterns on the page of water decals that I was using here, certainly enough for many more manicures. It’s a pretty good deal I think!

If you want to pick up some quasi-damask water decals for your nails, head over to the Born Pretty Store where you can find them for $1.29. Don’t forget to use my 10% off code, LY5X31! Enjoy!

There is something about a deep wine red and gold that just speaks to me. I was sent these beautiful golden water decals to review from the Born Pretty Store, and I just had to pair them with dark red!

I started with a dark red base, and then added the gold water decals. These decals are a bit different…the designs are larger and you need to cut them to size before you soak them in water. I am used to water decals that are a pre-set size, and with these you can adjust for long or short nails, and still have a lot of design left over for using at a different time! I like it.

Once the decals were on, I added some copper glitter highlights. Maybe this would have been better without the glitter, but it looked a little too simple!

Hope you enjoyed! You can pick up this fun sheet of golden (or silver!) water decals for $4.99 from the Born Pretty Store. I’m pretty sure I can get at least 4 full manis out of this, which explains why it costs more than most water decals. Don’t forget the 10% off code LY5X31! Enjoy 🙂